Singing The Blues: MySpace Music Loses Nearly Half Its Audience, And Its President

Remember MySpace Music? It was supposed to put online music streaming on the the right track. But with all the layoffs, shrinking audience and turmoil at parent MySpace, MySpace Music is singing the blues. According to comScore, only 17 million people in the U.S. visited MySpace Music in January, 2011, which is down 46 percent from the previous year. Pandora is now bigger on the Web, with an estimated 20.3 million monthly U.S. visitors.

Today, MySpace Music president Courtney Holt is stepping down. He joined two years ago from MTV. But with MySpace itself on the wane and Rupert Murdoch looking to unload it, MySpace Music can no longer hold its own.

Below is the internal MySpace email Mike Jones sent to employees announcing Holt’s departure. No replacement was named, instead Jones will be adding MySpace Music to his responsibilities.

I wanted to let everyone know that Courtney Holt’s role in the company will soon be changing. Over the next several weeks, he will be moving from being the President of Myspace Music to becoming a key advisor to both Myspace and Newscorp. Courtney will provide guidance on the strategic direction of Myspace Music and lend his incredible depth of experience, industry expertise and creativity to Myspace and Myspace Music. Additionally, Courtney will continue to serve on the board of Myspace Music.

Sam Wick will now oversee all of marketing for Myspace and operationally I will be taking over as the interim president of Myspace Music.